Dinner Plans
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: Carolina's exhausted. Kimball's fascinated. Written for the RvB Ladies' Night on Tumblr, for the prompt "food."


The first time Vanessa Kimball catches Agent Carolina alone, she's just walked into a wall.

"Um," Kimball says.

Carolina's extended one arm to catch herself, the palm splayed out against the wall, elbow bent at a precise angle like she's about to launch into a set of vertical one-handed pushups. She's swaying on her feet, badly, and her modded MJOLNIR armor is heavy and complicated enough that when it sways, you _notice_. It creaks and groans ominously, and for a second all Kimball can think is that if Carolina smashes a hole through the wall of the mess hall, the New Republic doesn't actually have the resources to build a new one.

"You may be right," Carolina says, presumably to her onboard AI, and then she sighs, straightening with a visible effort. When she notices Kimball, the full weight of her attention is... alarming. There's a trick she does with her helmet, a slight tilt to the head that puts her visor into shadow. It's almost an affectation, deliberately dramatic, but no less effective for it.

Kimball swallows hard. Betrayals and nonchalantly back-from-the-dead Captains are one thing. Intimidating ex-Freelancers stumbling around her HQ are a little outside her purview. "You okay?"

"Fine," Carolina says, sharply, and then, "Shut up. No, sorry. not you. Epsilon's being—yes, then maybe you _should _go offline!" She rests a hand to her helmet, sways back against the wall again and for a moment the sharp lines of her armor fold in on themselves, her shoulders hunching. "Sorry," she says. She puts on a softer voice like another set of armor, careful and deliberate. "I might've pushed myself a little hard. In the fight today. Speed unit and healing unit working simultaneously. They're not supposed to do that."

"Do you need a doctor?" Kimball asks, which brings to mind the terrifying Fed doctor they brought with them, the one they'd just given free access to the New Republic's stronghold, and that's... that's not what she wants to be thinking about right now.

"I'm fine," Carolina says, again. "Just hungry. Armor enhancements kick your metabolism into overdrive." She shrugs toward the mess. "Sorry. I'm probably gonna clear out your stocks, here." There's an awkwardness to the cadence of the weak joke. Like she's trying to remember how to act around people, maybe.

"Well, hey. We coped with Captain Grif," Kimball says. Carolina snorts a laugh, and Kimball makes an executive decision. "C'mon, I've got MREs in my office."

"I can just eat in the mess," Carolina says.

"Well, yes," Kimball says. "But you have to keep in mind that the New Republic's army mostly consists of ridiculously young soldiers who are ridiculously starved for stories of ridiculous badassery. Are you prepared to spend the evening regaling them with tales of your Freelancer adventures?"

Carolina tilts her helmet again, crossing her arms and drumming her fingers against one gauntlet. "So you're suggesting I spend the evening regaling you with those tales, instead?"

Kimball shrugs. "I'm marginally less annoying."

Carolina straightens. "Lead on," she says.

* * *

They raid Kimball's stash of MREs. Carolina devours, in rapid succession, macaroni and cheese, chana dal and basmati rice, five small burritos, and, after a quick squint at the nutrition information, an entire tube of salad dressing.

She comes up for air midway through a stirfry, glancing up unselfconsciously at Kimball, who realizes she's been staring. "Thanks," she says. "It's been a while since I let it get that bad."

"No problem," Kimball says, turning her eyes back to her own sandwich with an effort. Carolina's not wearing her helmet, now, although the tilt of her head suggests that she's still trying to evoke its harsh lines and shadows. Her hair's an improbably bright red, cropped close to her skull and flattened into strange shapes by her helmet. Bright green gene-modded eyes are overshadowed by a startling variety of scars, a thick swath of keloid tissue pushing up in a sunburst pattern toward her jaw from the back of her neck, a thinner slice along her cheek, a small chunk missing from one ear.

But underneath it all, she looks fairly young, about the same age as Kimball, maybe just on the far side of thirty. The thought is, frankly, terrifying.

Carolina leans back in her chair, sucking down another pouch of water. "So," she says. "Why don't you tell me why I'm really here."

Kimball nods to the pile of biodegradable tins littering the table. "Seems pretty self-explanatory."

"Uh-huh," says Carolina, her eyes flickering to the half-open door.

"Look," Kimball says, and resists the urge to raise her hands placatingly. "I figured, you know. Maybe you could use someone to talk to."

"We debriefed earlier," Carolina says. Kimball notices, with a sort of terrified amusement, that she's holding her plastic fork with a strong, careful grip. She wonders just how much damage an ex-Freelancer could do with a plastic fork. "Why am I here?"

"That's not what I—" Kimball pauses, takes a deep breath, regroups. "It's been a long war. You don't seem to talk to much of anyone, aside from the, you know." She waves a hand to indicate Epsilon, then sighs, drags a hand back through her hair. "I guess I figured you might need a friend."

Carolina blinks, like she's honestly startled, then gives a hoarse laugh. "Bad idea. My friends have an unfortunate habit of dying horribly. Or trying to kill me."

Kimball mirrors her stance, leaning back in her chair. "Mine, too. Funny how that works."

Carolina jolts forward, the front legs of her chair hitting the floor with a thump. "Sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that."

"It's fine," Kimball says. "Well, it isn't. But you know how that goes."

Carolina takes another bite of stirfry, then pauses, squinting up at Kimball with the fork halfway to her mouth. "You're a very strange person."

"Hate to break it to you, but having dinner with a colleague isn't especially strange. Stalking around HQ in full armor, on the other hand..."

Carolina's just looking at her, and for a second Kimball thinks she's maybe pushed it too far. Then a faint smile flickers across Carolina's face. Against all odds, it brings out laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. "Fair point," she says, and spears a piece of broccoli. "Sorry about Felix, by the way. He seemed like an asshole."

Kimball recognizes the blatant attempt at a change of subject, but the conversational inertia's hard to resist. "He was an asshole, but for a while there it seemed like he was our asshole. Yeah. Thanks." She picks at a notch carved into the corner of the table. "Hey," she says. "How many Felixes does it take to get paranoid enough to expect an attack in the middle of an allied camp?" In response to the narrowed eyes, she nods toward the door. "Haven't taken your eyes off it since we stepped in here. I'm pretty sure you figured out exactly how much damage you could do with your plastic fork if I attacked you. So how many Felixes does it take?"

A pause. Carolina chews thoughtfully, then says. "One." Another pause. "Sorry. Guess you're part of the club, now."

"Mm," says Kimball, and peels open a cup of pudding. She dips her spoon in—butterscotch, damn—and stirs it, idly. Then she says, "How many does it take to stop trusting your own team?"

Carolina's on her feet in an instant, and it takes a supreme effort of will for Kimball to keep herself in her own seat, stirring her pudding, arching a brow. Carolina's voice is tight, her rage compressed into politeness as she tugs her helmet back on over her face. Tilts her head down. "Thank you for dinner."

"They don't realize it," Kimball says. "But they need you. I saw it in them while they were training. They need a leader. Tucker tries, but he needs guidance. A mentor."

"They have Wash."

"Wash followed your every move out there today. He needs a leader, too." Kimball shrugs, concealing unease with a spoonful of pudding. "You hold yourself apart consciously, deliberately. You make a genuine effort not to get too close. You're gonna get them all killed, doing that."

When Carolina moves, she moves _fast_, planting her hands on Kimball's desk, and suddenly Kimball is shrinking back in her chair, staring up at six feet of armored, pissed-off Freelancer. Carolina's unarmed, but Kimball has the distinct impression she's looking down the barrel of a gun all the same. "Let me ask you something," Carolina says, low and fierce. "Given what just happened, given that this Felix guy stood by you and helped you and, yes, _mentored_ you, helped lead your army before you were even an officer. Given that Felix did all that and still tried to slit your throat with a smile, are you gonna be so quick to trust?"

A flash of echoing anger, buried deep. Carolina's led Freelancers with the best in experimental equipment and support personnel, while Kimball's kids have been flailing around in the mud with permanently jammed weapons and sparking, malfunctioning armor, the deck stacked against them from day one. She's treating Kimball like a subordinate, a supporting character, the baffled sheriff meant to step aside when the new hotshot comes into town. Bullshit.

Kimball blinks up at Carolina. Sees the residual trembling in her limbs, the slightly unequal distribution of weight on her legs, the very deliberate head-tilt, too exaggerated to be natural. Understands that the root of her anger lies not in being betrayed, but in doing the betraying.

"Always," Kimball says. "I'm a leader. I trust my people. It's my job."

The rage bleeds out of Carolina like an open wound. She sits down. She drags off her helmet, cards her fingers through her hair, then hunches forward, scrubbing at her face with her hands. When she speaks through her fingers, there's a note of self-deprecating humor in her muffled voice that Kimball hasn't heard before. "Friends, huh? I'm honestly not sure I know how to do that."

Kimball nudges her half-finished stirfry toward her. "We'll start with dinner," she says, and smiles. "See where it goes from there."


End file.
